Plant, Krauss "in no hurry" to end collaboration

<p>British musician Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin performs with Alison Krauss at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana April 25, 2008. REUTERS/Lee Celano</p>

DETROIT (Billboard) - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are hoping to turn their platinum-certified, Grammy Award-winning “Raising Sand” into a going concern.

“I‘m in no hurry to go anywhere,” Plant told Billboard.com during a teleconference with reporters Thursday (June 12). “I want to stay very close. This is a font of knowledge, and I‘m sticking as close to it as I can.”

Krauss concurred. “We’re all having a wonderful time, and I hope and I think all three of us (Krauss, Plant and producer T Bone Burnett) are hoping to continue this and that it go on and on.” But she added that the central duo’s association shouldn’t bring the curtain down on any of their other projects.

“That doesn’t mean we’ve lost any love for who we’ve played for and play with,” she said. “The guys in Union Station, that’s like home. So I hope to continue this and go back home, too.”

And while no firm plans are in motion yet for a “Raising Sand” sequel, Burnett, who’s also the musical director for the Plant-Krauss concert tour, said in a separate conversation that he hopes to get another shot at the collaboration.

“I feel like we’re just starting to know what we can do with it,” Burnett said. “The two of them are so incredibly good that I would hate to not continue to work with both of them.”

Plant and Krauss are working together through July 19, when the tour wraps in Nashville (they also stop at the Bonnaroo Music Festival on Sunday). And both said that they’re enjoying the opportunity to expand and enhance their musical partnership on the road.

“I‘m surprised at the varying of the performances show to show,” Krauss said. “Because of the personalities within the band, it has changed the show night to night -- not only the show overall, but each tune takes on a different character. Everything has its own identity from night to that. That’s very exciting for all of us.”

Plant, meanwhile, said that performing the album’s rootsy music, as well as revamped versions of some Led Zeppelin songs, has “become quite an illumination, really. What has been created with the chemistry between the three of us has its own kind of genre, really. I‘m a very fortunate man. I couldn’t wish for anything better than this.”